I work in cubeville, and have this issue with walkers-by viewing my surfage on my computer. It seems like they *always* walk by at inopportune times - like when I'm checking my personal mail or paying bills or looking at some website that, ok, I *know* I shouldn't be looking at, and I would prefer that
they don't see what I'm working on, or *if* I'm working, but I can't close my door, because I don't have a door! And the chances that I will get a door are nil, because cubes *never* have doors.

So, I give you: The Cubicle Curtain! It works like a shower curtain - you just get a rod and affix it to the opening that you walk through in the cubicle, then hang an OPAQUE shower-type curtain on the rod... voila! Privacy! I can do whatever I want in here! Of course, it doesn't help much with sound, for private calls and music, but at least I can look at or werk on whatever I want on the computer! I could even be naked in here and nobody would know!!! mwah ha ha! (hmm, ok, maybe not naked, but you get the drift...)

Just what *is* the purpose of my not having a door? I thought cubicles are used because they are cheaper and more rearrangeable than real walls... Y'know, that whole modular office thing... What I really *want* is an office with a real door, but I'm *settling* for a curtain.

Offices cost money and carry status that makes it difficult to give them to the employees who need them, even if both the manager and the employee agree that being less distracted would be good.

Only vaguely related: I recently underwent a minor medical procedure. The subterranean, greenish-gray, sixties state-of-the art operating room had been separated into workspaces using curtains - maroon, with faint rose patterns woven into them. The two styles had nothing in common, yet the colors harmonized, and it was nice to be in a space that, while functional, had still been decorated by someone.

If this idea was well recieved I could see cublicles being replaced entirely by curtains around each work area. Which would be fun as the boss could pop out of where ever there is an opening in the curtain.

I wish I'd mentioned this earlier, but then I hadn't been taking scads of Organizational Behavior and HR Management classes at the time.

If your boss can't trust you to do your work, then he or she shouldn't have hired you. If the boss can't tell whether or not you're doing your work, then he or she shouldn't be a boss. And if you can't get your work done, then it's not going to get done with a change in your privacy level, and you shouldn't have a job.